Gamasutra reports on an update to one of the longest running jokes in the games industry, Duke Nukem Forever. The title, already ten years in development, may (possibly) see release this decade. From the blurb: "3DR's George Broussard also demonstrated world interactivity that includes Duke standing in front of a computer and emailing the player, if he provides his email address for the game. But, according to the piece, Broussard was bashful, overall, about showing off the game, commenting: 'The problem is that when we show it, people are going to be like, Yeah, whatever. Honestly, at this point we just want to finish it.'"

You know, I think there's a lot to be said about project management when developing a computer game. Computer games have so many frail aspects.

They are complex.

The technology is forever changing.

There are multiple platforms.

They become obsolete after two months.

The fan base is one of usual hypercriticality.

With these aspects working against you, developing them is just all the more difficult. How many times has this game changed the engine it's being built upon? Too many.

From the article:

The game has undergone at least one complete change to its game engine during the course of development. Originally utilizing id Software's Quake II engine, the 3D Realms team switched in 1998 to Epic's Unreal engine 1.0 [6], forcing a revision of all previous work except for the game's textures, which were later replaced anyway.

3D Realms continued to receive updates from Epic for their newly licensed engine, and in 2000 they moved to the Unreal Engine 1.5 technology branch. However, in mid 2001 they cut themselves off entirely from Epic and went their own way [7].

2002 marked the start of what is widely considered to be the second project restart. After hiring several new programmers, the team completely re-wrote the renderer and other game engine modules, beginning work on a new generation of game content. Broussard estimates that around 95% of the previous level design work has since been scrapped. The engine (now based on Unreal engine 2.0) is for the first time supposedly complete, and supporting such features as pixel shading, normal mapping and high dynamic range based lighting.

George Broussard has stated several times that the only parts of the Unreal engine that are still part of their code base are UnrealScript, the networking code, and the level editor. Everything else, except Meqon, which is the physics engine, has been written from scratch by 3D Realms. The principal technical reason given by Broussard for the extensive delays was the unstable tech base. Now that this problem seems to have been solved, 3DR have expanded their team considerably, from 22 to 31 members, marking what many hope to be the final stage of the development cycle.

When a major game comes out, it is humorously suggested in many fan circles that Duke Nukem Forever will be switching to the renderer of that recently released game.

There's also a very informative timeline. As the last sentence of the above excerpt illustrates, Duke Nukem Forever came to suffer a development process that simply could never complete itself because it always needed the newest latest and greatest renderer. This is insanity, and I predict that this game will lack original content and any sort of story line since they are relying on graphics and graphics alone to satisfy the customer requirements. You could release a side scrolling version of Duke Nukem (a la Duke Nukem II) that I would play given a good story line and fun puzzle-solving levels.

The game has undergone at least one complete change to its game engine during the course of development. Originally utilizing id Software's Quake II engine, the 3D Realms team switched in 1998 to Epic's Unreal engine 1.0 [6], forcing a revision of all previous work except for the game's textures, which were later replaced anyway.

It's worse than that, actually. From a PC Gamer article I read back in the 90's, DNF started with the Quake I engine, then moved to the Quake II engine. They thought it would be an easy transition until they realized that the higher resolution of the Q2 engine meant that they needed to add more detail to all their models. By the time they got to the Unreal engine, everyone was already starting to wonder if it was going to ship.

So in short, they've been picking up and throwing away their work for a long time now.

Yeah, there can be a multitude of reasons but I think it boils down to: Someone in the chain of command didn't know when to call quits.

When to quit tweaking the game. When to quit adding shit. When to quit revising it. When to quit the project period.

This obviously isn't the game they had in mind years ago, hell, it's been majorly revised several times. The problem is, in that span, a normal team could have gotten several (say 2-4) of the better concepts for a DukeNukem game to market and have had at least one good, if not great game.

As it is, I don't see any strong direction for the game now, it looks like it's being designed to be a jack-of-all-trades. And through all the hype and time, the bar is set so high, that it better be nothing short of spectacular.

Yeah, but think of where Linux would be if Linus was still working on it alone at home because it didnt quite have all of the features that he wanted.

We know exactly where it would be, because another open-source kernel project has succumbed to this.

The GNU kernel was originally meant to be based on Trix, but then it was decided that it was too much work to port to other architectures, so work began afresh on the HURD, based on the Mach microkernel. After a while, it was decided that Mach wasn't good enough, so work began again on a revision of the HURD, this time based on the L4 microkernel. These days, there's talk about abandoning that work too, in favour of something based on Coyotos [coyotos.org].

Meanwhile, after sixteen years, GNU still don't have their own production-ready operating system kernel, but more pragmatic people have brought us Linux.

The problem is, in that span, a normal team could have gotten several (say 2-4) of the better concepts for a DukeNukem game to market and have had at least one good, if not great game.

They say projects are never completed; they are merely abandonned.

You are exactly right. 3DRealms should have released 2-4 good (but not great) games since I bought my copy of Duke Nukem Atomic Edition way back when. I still load that game onto my computer occasionally when I feel like blasting some aliens, because even though the game technology is years old, it's still a very playable game.

Here's my armchair perspective of how 3DR should proceed:

Replace the project manager - Whoever is in charge of the project has obviously never managed a project for a company where the customer sets the deadlines. Replace this guy with a non-game developer type who knows when a product is good enough for the market.

Kill "Forever" - The name of the current vapor-game implies that this will be the ultimate Duke Nukem experience, the game to end all games, after which every gamer will burn his Quake, GTA, and DOOM3 CDs in despair. Forget pursuing the Holy Grail. Just make a game.

Release your results after one year no matter what - Sure, you'll have cool stuff you want to add on release day, but you can save it for Duke 5. You know? The one you'll be able to develop because Duke 4 brings in some revenue?

3DR needs to stop thinking of Duke 4 in terms of a motion picture masterpiece that will go down in history with Ben Hur, Lawrence of Arabia, or Debbie Does Dallas. Think of it more like James Bond or Star Trek. Some people will like each release, some people will hate it. But it brings in enough dough to keep the franchise going, and gives your core fan base a whole lot of fun.

The problem is, in that span, a normal team could have gotten several (say 2-4) of the better concepts for a DukeNukem game to market and have had at least one good, if not great game.

As somebody always points out, NASA have designed robots, built them and sent them to Mars in less time than it has taken to produce Duke Nukem Forever. I think "one good, if not great game" is aiming a little low, personally. I've attended college, university and built a business up in the same time period.

What I don't understand is WHY Duke Nukem Forever had to take so long. In the same time that it has taken to do DNF, 3D Realms has shipped several other decent games, for example, Max Payne and Max Payne 2. I understand that these games would have been developed by separate teams within 3D Realms, but why did they have the wrong team working on their BIG game?
They could have shipped at least 3 Duke Nukem games in the time it has taken to do DNF. No one expects a Duke game to be the best game ever. It's su

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But, according to the piece, Broussard was bashful, overall, about showing off the game, commenting: 'The problem is that when we show it, people are going to be like, Yeah, whatever. Honestly, at this point we just want to finish it.'"

Sounds to me like Broussard has finally realised that endless rewrites and engine changes were a mistake, and that at some point you have to accept limitations and ship the product. Now that he has realised this, I expect DNF will actually be released in the near future.

Yeah, personally I was expecting him to say "Honestly, at this point we just want to continue dicking around with it for another decade."It sounds to me like he realises the endless rewrites were a mistake, but it also sounds like he's resigned to the fact that nobody cares if they release tomorrow or five years from now. He's gone from being optimistic about realising it soon (which granted was always incorrect), to saying he hopes they someday finish it (which may turn out to actually occur).

"mainly just pieces of the game in progress and tech demos", including "an early level, a vehicle sequence, a few test rooms"

OOOoooo, an early level *and* some test rooms? Sounds like they've been busy these past ten years! If we're lucky maybe they've also completed a Pong mini-game, which leaves nothing left to create except the game itself.

The brand itself seems to have lost a significant amount of value and overall relevancy to me. I remember many endless nights playing Duke 3D, and the great world it immersed you in. The character itself was great, as was the game. Everyone was excited to see what they could do next with the franchise, and they sounded really ambitious about what they wanted to do. Then, time passed.. and passed.. and passed.. and games like Deus Ex came out, which again kicked some serious ass (the sequel maybe not quite as much). So, obviously the industry has moved on, and would this game coming out even make as much as a splash as much as it once may have? I mean in all this time, they had plenty of opportunity to license another engine (again, like Deus Ex) and take the original game to the next level. Instead, I honestly have no idea what they have been doing, and in the meantime, many other great games have come along to fill the void. No matter what they come out with at this point, it is never going to live up to the expectations that they have working on this game, theoretically, for 10 years now.

Well, just for old time's sake try this [edgenetwork.org], if you still have your original game disc handy to get the.GRP file from. Phenomenal Duke 3D port (he's working on Shadow Warrior now) and the network support is now UDP-based, rather than IPX like the original, and works great over broadband. It's remarkable playing Duke Nukem 3D at 1600x1200 resolution with shading and a lot of other modern OpenGL effects, not to mention several other players. Runs flawlessly in Win2K and XP... haven't tried it under Wine yet. I

It is hard to tell whether anyone outside of the "yeah, it's gonna be released with Vista" style jokes on slashdot knows the name, apart from those who played the previous games all those years ago, it's going to be difficult to break the collective image that people have of it.

It's possible they're going to have to be marketting it less as a sequal, but as a new game. I don't think they can rely on the name they had, because it's very much a "had".

Yeah, how many gamers today even REMEMBER Duke Nuke'em at this point? It would be like releasing a "Pole Position" sequel that tried to trade on the cache of a game that most gamers only vaguely remember (if at all). Duke Nuke'em is more the butt of jokes now than a serious franchise.

yeah but will we still have our memories when forever comes out?:-pno i'm sure it'll be fine, I'm just going along with what everyone else is saying for the hell of it *lol*

Case in point - my younger siblings don't have access to top of the range PC's, and so often will play older games. I wouldn't be surprised if duke3d was last played only 5 years ago by them, some of them are probably young enough to not have discovered better things like drugs before forever comes out to wanna spend their money on that

Do you think so at this point? They've made me wait 10 years, so why should I be in a rush to give them $59.95? Besides, after this length of time and the nightmare the development process was, I'm going to wait for the community reviews, before I even think about dropping some dough on it.

I think the most important question at this point is: Who cares? Is there anyone who is still looking forward to this game? Anyone?
I remember playing Duke Nukem 3D, but I honestly can't remember what computer I was playing it on because it was so long ago. It isn't like there haven't been three or four generations of shooters since this game was announced.
Sure the original was amusing, but it wasn't that good. Just give it up. No matter what they finally release, it won't be worth the wait and no one will really care.

There is more viral marketing behind this game than you could possibly imagine. This game is a fucking legend. Every 10-year-old on AOL knows that when DNF is released, hell will freeze over, Elvis will return, and Linux will gain 100% marketshare.

Because of this, the instant it's released, a million people will rush to buy the game just because of the hype.

It may be that a week later, the game will turn out to be shitty, and no one will care, but I'm predicting that the game will at least cover its development costs within that first week.

The game would need to cost $200 just to cover the development costs. Can you imagine how much the salary of 20-30 people, over 10 years costs? Plus the cost of licensing technology, and office space!

At this point, they're just going to have to try to lessen their losses, and spit out a few quick games after, built on the technology. I am shocked that this company still exists. They must have made a lot of money on duke3d and max payne to pay for this exercise in hopelessness.

The old adage "research is never wasted" is somewhat relevant to this subject. One would expect that all of the work they were doing for DNF was used as a tech base for their other games that were released.

Even if the game only had 20 people working on it, at $50k per year, for 10 years, that's 10 million dollars. You have to sell more than a million units to make that back (developers rarely get $10 per unit... i'd be surprised if they can get $5 per unit).

Generally, the total cost to a company per employee (add on costs of office space, benefits, support staffing) runs 2-3 times their salary, so figure more like $20-30 million. Yikes.

That fact notwithstanding, the money is mostly already spent (assuming this isn't just another joke article). If they drop the game now, the money is definitely gone. If they finish it and release it, they have a chance to recoup at least some of the money, assuming the cost of finishing it doesn't exceed the net income from

Exactly!And we have an excellent example too: Doom3.The first dooms were great, but Doom3 was just not very fun.Hell, after finishing D3, I fired up jDoom (opengl engine for the original doom) and played coop with a friend. Guess what? It was a lot funner!

Ahhh, how I miss tripmines. I remember how thrilled i was when I discovered that you could put them on the door tracks so that they would trigger immediately when somebody opened the door. Pipe bombs were fun, too.

I was thinking the same thing. It might be a huge seller, just so people can have it on their shelves or take screenshots to put along side all of their jokes. I know I'll take a screenshot and make it my avatar on other forums!

1. Some game website will first frown on it, then get a beta copy and hype all the neato features.

2. Other testers will then buy $800 graphic cards to test it out on their vapor cooled 5Ghz Pentium4 box, then say, meh, only gets slightly better FPS than Jazz Jackrabbit or something equally stupid

3. The game will be released, it will sit on 5 CDs instead of one DVD to keep "costs down" and pirated versions will appear with all the speech replaced with mexican festival music

4. People will realize the game is as deep as the pamphelet their latest credit card came in and will toy with the game until 17 minutes after initial release someone posts a complete walkthrough with every secret bonus and glitch found.

5. The online site will be inundated with delinquant 13 yr old sharp shooters who won't give us hard working adults a chance to just play the game and have fun.

6. Some dude in Korea will die after playing the game for 79 hours straight.

7. A full week after the release of the game a dozen patches will come out to fix various holes in the game [re: pirates] and each one will take a full 200MB to replace 39KB of code in the binary.

8. A full week and one day after release the game will become yesteryear news and people will be clamouring about the latest "let's kill the mutant aliens in obviously dangerous situations game"... oh fuck call it Far Cry 2.

9. The folk at 3DR will be vindicated then bought out by MSFT and outsourced to India to make the "books" look good.

> 3. The game will be released, it will sit on 5 CDs instead of one> DVD to keep "costs down" and pirated versions will appear with all> the speech replaced with mexican festival musicCool! Where can I download this patch?

> 6. Some dude in Korea will die after playing the game for 79 hours straight.

When Quake came out, soon after I got the 3.5 CTF super-patch. I recall seeing a guy run by with the glowing, waving flag, and this holy light shone down on me. This, multiplayer, team-based online

I think its just too funny to see a) that Wiki has DNF listed in their site and also b) the image used on their page. That image alone really dates the game. I vote they use that original image for their auctual game box.

If the big feature they have is that the game's character can e-mail you a form letter then the game is in even worse shape than I ever imagined. They don't talk about innovative gameplay at all, but they were sure to show off how Duke can write you an e-mail probably telling you to "keep it real!"

This "feature" should be a late addition in the final production or something a programmer added on their lunch breaks, not something to show off.

Even if it does release, due to all of the hype, it will have to out perform every game on the market both graphically and in the story. If it fails to do that, it will flop very quickly. What is the point of developing a game this long if you can not even out do the current market?

One of the interesting things about this is that, in the 10 years since this was announced, the FPS genre has been and gone. After Duke3d, there has been quake, quake2, quake3, doom3, etc etc. The poor critical reception of doom3 is an indication that old gameplay tropes won't fly anymore. It is easy to forget sometimes, but games have developed radically in a lot of ways other than graphically.

It's a reasonable educated guess that a 10-year-old game design will be received very poorly. It's kind of like if

It would be a nice surprise if it turned out to be one hell of a game. Then again I haven't been a gamer since quake 1 and quake world over a modem... those were the days
The fact that it started with the quake 1 engine really adds perspective:

At this point. I personally would like to see it, but I'm not expecting anything extravegant from it. I wouldn't even rely on it for solid online play. The fact that they have taken 10 years to make the game doesn't say much about their speed. Thus, patches to fix hacks, flaws, and various other things could take as long as...you guessed it, 10 years. I remember Valve really screwing up game play with their patches and updates...I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happened here.Either rate, I kno

This will be the saddest failure in all of video game history, if it isn't already. I mean, honestly, they are wasting time having the in game character EMAIL the player? If this is where they think video games are headed, everyone involved in the development of this game should be lined up and shot.Why would anybody buy this game? This industry is quckly tiring of one vapid 3rd person shooter after another. Buy the time DNF ( Did Not Finish more like it ) comes out, 3rd person shooters will be fads lon

One of the joys of Duke 3D was the interactivity of the environment.Almost everything you tried to do something to, did something.

I'm playing FEAR right now. There're phones, computers, fire extinguishers, desks, a ton of scenery. And it's all just scenery. I'm sat there going "hang on a minute. A decade ago FPS games had more interactivity than this!"

I go up to a computer in Duke Nukem Forever, I damn well expect to be able to browse the web on that thing. I expect to be able to run Google searches, click

...just what sort of a biblical failure they are about to produce? Nothing they do will be adequate. Nothing they do will satisfy. Nothing they do will be enough. At this point in development, if we can call it that, if there's even an official 'point in development' for a game that's been under construction for ten years, 3DRealms can't even have normal marketing for their game. Worse yet, anything they say becomes some strange and surreal form of anti-marketing in which everyone the world over that k

Despite the cliche, it seems that Duke Nukem has become the "Jarndice and Jarndice" of the modern age, reflecting on the evils of software development rather than those of the Chancery division. In all seriousness DN3D was such a pathetic story it would be funny.

I wont be surprised if they make more money from the book about what not to do with a game/generic development project than they do from the software itself.

This is a good illustration of how evil the PC is as a gaming platform: If the development time is substantial, the ground you are standing on will change and your development efforts will be wasted.

If they had developed this title for a console, it would have been finished in much less time - since they would not have felt pressured into changing their underlying engine way too many times.. Heck, it might have been a dreamcast title!

Stop reading too much into it. He's saying exactly what he's saying: After nearly a decade, it will be literally impossible to "blow away" anyone. Best case scenario, they'll get a "Well, it took long enough, and it doesn't suck, so I guess that's good". Worst case scenario they'll get "All that wait and we get this steaming pile of crap?". No matter what they do, they're fucked. It's just been too long.

At this point, they can't say they've invested 10 years in it. What they've done is spend the last 10 years on 3-4 failed projects, and one (bearing a superficial resemblence to a design doc that's ten years old) that may see the light of day.